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Trump says No to NOAA [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-28
I started this two weeks ago when NPR made a link between Project 2025 and an executive order called Unleashing American Energy. Then the news came today that 800 employees at NOAA were going to be fired and it was no longer a prediction of what was going to happen, it is happening.
The game plan starts on page 674 of Project 2025. After the heading of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the subheading is "Break Up NOAA." It goes on for three and a half pages.
The NOAA consists of:
The National Weather Service (NWS) The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAS) The National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps
From Project 2025:
"Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry, and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry's mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning around the unplannable... its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized."
"Climate change alarm industry." They make it sound like people and organizations are making up climate change to make a buck. How is it these conservative think tanks do not see what is right before their eyes? Every form of disaster is getting worse each year. Hurricanes, floods, fires, droughts, rising sea temperatures and levels, global average temperatures rising, and disappearing glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic Ice. These aren't imaginary, they're measurable.
"...is harmful to future U.S. prosperity." It's not those who recognize climate change that are trying to make money, it's the industries that want to ignore it who are behind it it all. The fossil fuels industry. Project 2025 wants more of it, because they believe there is no cause and effect relationship.
"... fatal conceit of planning around the unplannable..." This statement is fatalistic to the max. Saying that you can't do anything about climate change because it doesn't exist, and if it did, you can't do anything about it anyway.
Project 2025 wants the National Weather Service to be a money maker. First they say that weather forecasts are made by local radio stations and colleges, and then they say that those are scraped off of AccuWeather, not even mentioning The Weather Channel. They say the commercial weather reporting businesses are more accurate than the National Weather Service and then contradict themselves saying that they use the data from the National Weather Service. Which is it? In any case, they want to charge everyone for the data the National Weather Service provides. No more freebies.
The National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service need to present their data in a neutral way. I guess that way Trump can take out his Sharpie and change the hurricane's path again.
Of course, Project 2025 wants to take off any restrictions to off shore oil drilling and fishing, reopening vast areas of the ocean. This seems to be at cross purposes because oil spills will kill everything.
The Office of the Oceanic Atmospheric Research..." provides theoretical science..." and is the "...source of much of NOAA's climate alarmism." So, of course, they want to disband all climate research.
"Scientific agencies like NOAA are vulnerable to obstructionism of Administration's aims if political appointees are not only in sync with Administration policy." Get those loyal, brainless flunkies instead of scientists.
NOAA scientists and employees are particularly concerned with the executive order that Trump signed on January 29th called: Unleashing American Energy. Trump wants to utilize currently protected areas for oil and gas exploration and scrape the ocean floor for rare earth minerals.
The order states that any agencies putting out information or recommendations that get in his way will be eliminated. NOAA putting out information relating to climate change make them a prime target.
If you've got a grant that includes the words climate change, pollution, or natural resources, expect it to be canceled. And, of course any terms associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.
When contacted by news agencies, NOAA employees want anonymity because of retaliation at work.
Even contractors don't want to be identified. "The mood's lower than I've ever seen it. There's a lot of fear in the office."
Career civil servants at NOAA are also awaiting the likely return of Neil Jacobs, an atmospheric scientist who served as NOAA's acting head during the first Trump administration. Trump has nominated Jacobs to be agency's next leader.
Jacobs put out a statement in 2019 after Trump did the Sharpie incident showing Hurricane Dorian going into Alabama, backing Trump up.
"In a world where catastrophic climate change impacts and extreme weather events are becoming more extreme and intense, I can think of nothing worse than turning this scientific powerhouse into a skeletal operation. If president Trump moves forward with demolishing NOAA, he will jeopardize most people's access to life-saving information, while only the rich might be able to afford private data sources," said Juan Declet-Barreto, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Lutnick was quizzed by the Democrats about his plans for NOAA, he provided a written response that said "it is premature to discuss any specific recommendations before engaging with the NOAA and the Office of Management and Budget." I suppose it is natural to try to avoid perjury like Kash Patel has been accused of. Plausible deniability. Just like Trump's Supreme Court nominees used. Many say they did commit perjury.
Then came news today that 800, and possibly 1000, employees at NOAA were going to be being fired. The probationary employees were fired yesterday.
National Weather Service employees have their own union and was trying to contact members Thursday night. Some took to social media to say they were looking at legal options. We know how well that has worked out in the past with the Trump administration. The firings happen anyway and when DOGE finds the wrong people have been fired, they try to hire them back again.
Terminated workers got a letter that said, "The Agency finds you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the Agency's current needs." We all know NOAA did not write that. It's straight out of DOGE's playbook.
Because "climate change" is a "left- wing ideology" to hamper businesses, the people who prove it exists have to go.
Predicting hurricanes and floods and tornados and their paths are not exact sciences, there are too many variables, but the data acquired and fed into supercomputers makes it get closer every day. Now we're losing those people that were making it happen.
You can still search for "Climate change" at NOAA.gov, but there's no guarantee of how long. There's even an article about how NOAA experts helped with parts recovery of the American Eagle and Black Hawk helicopter crash.
Everything Trump and the Republicans want is all about money. Take government agencies and turn them into money makers if they can be. If not get rid of them. Don't fit into your philosophy, then change it if they're going to continue to exist.
There needs to be an outcry about this agency's future. But, there are so many others, too. We can't keep letting Project 2025 knock over the dominoes.
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